


hydrangeas

by kazahaya0



Category: Inazuma Eleven GO
Genre: Angst, Childhood Friends, Childhood Trauma, Coming of Age, Fifth Sector, First Love, Growing Up, M/M, Mild Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-06
Updated: 2019-09-06
Packaged: 2020-10-11 04:47:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 16,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20540351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kazahaya0/pseuds/kazahaya0
Summary: Mahoro realizes he might be jinxed.





	1. Jinx

He had been only six when he moved to Inazuma Town, or was it five? He was skinny but with chubby cheeks like most kids that age, bright red hair. His favorite thing in the world was soccer. His parents and siblings had just moved from another city and Mahoro was excited to begin school. He had enjoyed his previous ones but never got to meet a lot of kids, since his parents were always on the go. Now they could stay, it would just be his parents doing the traveling and his big brother was old enough to look after him and his sister.

They were met with rain the moment they were done moving into their new apartment, cardboxes out of the way and Mahoro sadly sulking by the window. They had passed by a park earlier, when it wasn’t raining, and there were plenty of kids playing soccer. He was bored out of his mind, he just wanted to make friends and play.

On his third day, the rain stopped and the sun came out. He quickly went for his soccer ball and ran out of the apartment, barely shouting at his mother where he was going, promising not to get lost.

He was never the kid to be chosen first to play, but he was never the kid to be ignored either. The small courtyard at the park had been easy to find. And there they were! The same group of kids he had noticed playing soccer when he first got there! But… it seemed they didn’t care much to notice him back.

The ball dropped to his feet as the other kids kept playing away. Closed off by the fence, he sat down by a hydrangea bush thinking of a plan. Maybe if he started playing on his own, they would see how good he was and would want him on his team. But he doesn’t feel like it will work. Maybe it will be easier once school starts. Maybe he will get other friends.

But it wasn’t like that. One of the other kids playing stopped and came over the fence. He extended one chubby hand to Mahoro, expecting him to take it. His eyes were soft and pink and he smiled so openly to Mahoro as if he knew him since they were toddlers, and not someone he was greeting for the first time.

“Hi! What are you doing there? Come on and join us!”

And that was when he met Amagi.

  
***  
  
  
  


As Mahoro grew up, he realized good and bad luck came in a pair. Most importantly, he learnt he could be a curse on himself and others.

That going through life was all in all, a path led with illusions. That games kids play, whether they be mean spirited or good spirited are nothing but training to their adult selves. That everyone experiences their worst and their best as a child and those are the experiences that will mold your flesh and spirit that will draw the air in and out of you. From the moment you are born you are fated. But you are also given choices, free will within your destiny.

He chose to lock away his heart in an iron box. To become what everyone expected of him and much more. To excel in sports and school, to deliver ill fate to those who had wished him harm and whoever would cross his way. He wasn’t vengeful, it was just the way of things, the natural order of retribution.

Good luck, bad luck, an eye for an eye.

He grew strong, observant and stoic. A leader of gentle manners and bitter stares.

Someone rotten.

***

Practice, school work, practice.

He always leaves his phone at home, no business bringing it to school or class, the library or stuffing it in the gym locker. Nobody will call him, and he won’t call anybody. Family knows where he is supposed to be, so he is. His schedule is tight with the championships and the exams coming up and he can afford no distractions, so he has none.

He has known the feeling of anticipating a message, a paper note passed in class, the soft ringtone of an e-mail, but has forgotten also. Seasons and years have passed since then.

He is intact in his solitude, a master of self-restraint. He has but one vice, but it is well under control.

***

The moon is high in the sky, full and white, and Mahoro can’t sleep. He often has insomnia episodes, nights that only drag away his speculations and thoughts as he focuses his eyes on some other place.

Sometimes he gets ahead with his homework and practice sheets, for the lack of better things to do. Quiet into the night, his is the only light in the house alight. He feels like the only soul left on earth, as he lays over formulas, practice menus, kanji sheets and calligraphy homework. He almost understands the appeal taking the habit, of Buddhist monks, who isolate themselves away in the mountains. Shaved faces and heads, like newborns exposed to the elements, their wrinkled hands in prayer for a benefit all creations. For the benefit of themselves. Clean prayers and clean souls.

Ideally.

That is somehow the path Mahoro is himself taking, isolated by school and practice, mind and body sane through exhaustion and knowledge. The path to somewhere he doesn’t know yet, but who ever does?

His school class picture hangs in a simple dark wooden frame on his desk. He has no emotional attachment to it; it belongs there just as his textbooks do, or in case he needs to place a face to a name, being class representative. It’s there to prove a point, not to himself but to others, to his parents. His classmates smile at something unknown, not their future for sure. Unfocused eyes and photo ready smiles, the kind of picture you show your family that hangs on your class’ wall when someone wins a prize. Not the kind of pictures his classmates actually take, pouting or having fun, mouths in a twist, faces full of life.

Mahoro has a photo of him, Amagi and Yukie too, smiling that way when they were kids, bumping shoulders in the sunset. It is stocked somewhere, away, he hasn’t looked at it in ages. He stopped searching for it, stopped looking for it. He knows Yukie has it too, an old copy in her wallet next to others’ of her closest friend, most likely, or a neat folder in her room. He doesn’t know about Amagi, maybe he has it, maybe he doesn’t. Maybe he threw it away, ripped it to pieces or cut it like Mahoro wishes he did. He wouldn’t censor him for doing so.

He lets his back hit the chair, an exhausted sigh escaping his lips. He turns off his desk light and stays there for a while, legs open under the table. He feels much too old already than what he is. He lets the darkness seep back into his room like dark water but with it comes the shine of moonlight too, his bedroom shaded in tones of light and shade.

Soon the sun is up and he is on his way to school. Every day is exactly the same.

Inside him it is as different as his outside. Outside a blank, inside a turmoil. But he never gives it away, never complains, never wastes school time on it.

That crushing feeling growing tighter and tighter, like his ribcage is about to burst, full of tottering birds in a dark iron cage. The lingering sense of doom that sinks him right to the floor, like the earth is keeping him in place to endure this. He feels like a tin soldier, one of those who comes in a set, one of those with a heart made of lead, sinking him down.

A marching toy on autopilot everyday as he sees the dawn, goes to school and back. All his bones made of lead as he walks, as he runs—no, as he marches through his days.

He tries to close his eyes again, back in bed. The sound of pouring rain seeping in through his closed window and his shades. He stays there listening to it. T_ap tap_, it makes. The sound of someone scratching at his window.

Rain is supposed to calm you down, to soothe your mind. But Mahoro can’t feel anything new, at all, except for the endless turning inside his ribcage reminding him he is still alive.

***

He left his tv on as he was cooking, background noise like the background noise his classmates make in school, when they’re having lunch or in the corridors talking about the silliest of things.

Kamen Rider is on, one of its many incarnations. It has been the link of generations now but to Mahoro its even deeper than regular nostalgia. Kamen Rider, there is one for every generation. As a boy he was one with Amagi then, and they played endlessly when they weren’t in school or running after a soccer ball. They knew all the phrases, all the moves, the main poses, they had the toys. Even Yukie watched it at some point, everyone just had to. So she joined in sometimes, when she was bored and in the mood to play warrior.

Mahoro finishes up the broth and lets it settle. Then he takes a ceramic bowl and starts filling it with rice.

_‘Always fight for justice!! Defend what is good! That is the true power of friendship!!’_ the tv blasts out, a jingle in the background before the ads. Mahoro turns it off.

That night Mahoro squints his eyes at the roof of his room. He tries to remember the words, the reflexes, the main character’s traits. But they’re all diffuse to him now, a blur of color and excited exclamations combined with other Kamen Riders who came before and after his. He only remembers Amagi and their afternoons watching the show, toy figures in hand, before they went to play outside. Nothing else.

***

  
All late spring and summer it seems like it’s raining. A never-ending message from the skies, a fresh awakening to the hydrangeas of their school grounds. Yukie loves them, and so do the other girls in his class. Even his team mates comment on the beautiful colors once, besides getting their short summer vacations ruined due to the weather. Mahoro passes them without noticing them, looking without staring as he does with anything else that isn’t to be focused. A look of his would be enough to dry them up, that’s what his team mates say in between laughs. He is starting to believe the jokes his mates tell of him, behind his back. Only these, the harmless ones. All flowers eventually die. No matter how much it rains or how much he notices them or not.

It feels like it’s always raining these days.

***

Genei Gakuen is full of hidden plots of flourishing bush and flower. Maybe the actual director or someone before them thought it nice to add splashes of color, which would explain the neon exit and cafeteria signs in the dark corridors. The school was built in the sixties, on top of an older building. Maybe it had been an earlier school once, nobody really knows. Every building at a time had been stripped of its ancient name to be used during the war, including schools, if they were old enough to last until today. Even the uniforms look old-fashioned, in a way. Dark purple and dusty yellow, white in the summer.

In competitions, their school colors always look stark and dark against other banners, always.

Crows fly everywhere around the roof and the high trees that surround it. From the highest floors they can see the city’s bay area, but the ugly part, not the pretty part. The one with the cargo docks and thorn buildings, the factories and their giant towers of nothing. They’re a few miles away from the foul smells of the industrial area though, so the Genei’s hydrangeas bloom intact around their eerie castle.

The school is kept alive by its students, its clubs and its active sportsmanship. The architecture shows here and there the age of the school; the moss covered with dark purple paint, wood floors old but polished with use. It looks its most unnerving on Sundays, when there is nobody there to fill the dark halls with laughter and rushed steps to class.

Mahoro is used to the school getting a bad rep. “The school of shadows”, the kanji reads, if you read it that way. Other teams call them weird and creepy, until they lose against their team. Their whole team feels like dark smoke on the field, all around and impossible to grasp. Mahoro also knows this is partly due to him, both the creepy comments and the wins. His appearance, and his stone-like glare are avoided like evil-eye.

This doesn’t bother him for long. Gossip is a waste of time and their school made it on Fifth Sector’s ranking list. In reality, and since the Fifth Sector started to control results and all schools were subjected to its agreement, Genei actually got a sweet deal. New athletic funds and new equipment were given to the school. New scholarships too. A sort of welcome package. The school had been rewarded yearly since then, a proof and example of the Fifth Sector’s regulations and stability. The school accepted it all in its gloomy happiness. Like a dutiful dog obeying its master. Genei had always been good at surprising and following orders.  
  
Really not something they should be proud of. But such is the way of things now.

When Mahoro transferred, fresh out of God Eden, the most prestigious and most secretive Fifth Sector training campus, he was welcomed with open arms. And so many questions. But he wouldn’t disclose any of it.

He was put in charge after his first season on the field, after his senpai graduated. His team mates feared him as much as they respected him and soon questions would fly about God Eden. He remembers his summers there, three in a row, ever since his parents got that letter and that visit from the Fifth Sector.

He knew what he meant. He knew what it could do for him.

It was a way to polish him into perfection, into body over matter, he was probably one of the few kids who really earned for it, who wished for it so hard his face crumpled until he saw tears while he slept. By day he was silent, repressive. His short shirt sleeves failing to hide his bruises. He had been eleven when he was chosen, getting into fights constantly with the same people he had been for a while. They always had harsh words and stones to throw at him, it would hurt but Mahoro knew it would be twice as hurtful if they had the same to Amagi.

He would rather remember his feet running against the sand, of falling on hard rock and scrapping his knees, over and over. The holographic messages from the base encouraging and demanding results, the grey uniforms they all wore. Everything smelt fake on those dorms, the food, the fields, and the shore.

Even if the island was ancient, its people no longer lived there. Only children of the Fifth Sector. Only small warriors on Spartan regimes and sleepless dreams. Humid summers and his weakness flowing out of his body as blood, as vomit.

Weakness was seen as a wound there. But no parent ever bothered to check, and all kids were too afraid or too proud to give it up.

Year after year. Mahoro was aware of this, had been for a while even before attending.

Mahoro hadn’t been the best, not even close to the top five, but he was reserved for something else. Everyone was manipulated, at least they knew it, on that island. They were promised a world of wondrous results, they would be stronger, better; a world they would serve well.

As he queued with the other kids upon arrival at the sandy beaches every year, he briefly wondered if Amagi would ever be there among the other faces.

But of course he wouldn’t, he wasn’t tarnished like him and the others, too old for their age, too strong for their skinny bodies. He didn’t have a heart painted with lead, waiting for opportunity and opportunity to rise above others. He didn’t need to constantly prove himself and others he wasn’t useless, a coward, weak.

Mahoro never saw him there, amongst the boats cluttered of fresh-faced kids, some of them too young, too small for this and crying for their parents. Too late for that now.

Sometimes it felt they were playing a sort of survival game, and they would let this fantasy lullaby them to sleep. Only the oldest got the real gist of it, the heaviness which they had been entrusted in their shoulders. So let the younger ones play at it, and pretend they were pirates on their free time. Soon it was easy for the coaches to tell who could or couldn’t stay, who had the worst and best marks. Who was strong enough to summon a kenshin.

Everyone got assignments then: a school to be their destiny, to wreck and manipulate soccer from within. They were all spies in a sense, pretending to be everything but what themselves wanted to be, forgetting the feeling the sport brought them when they first played.

Mahoro supposed this is what happened to professional players, so and so. Once you swear off to major teams you can’t be preoccupied with your own self. You are part of a whole, of a path someone picked up for you.

At the island, Mahoro’s bruises and cuts got replaced by new bruises and cuts. But these were from playing, from training. These were noble, achievements of his success.

When he got home his parents picked him up from the airport, each year he had grown more they said, and he would nod and answer as politely and as quietly as he could.

He was glad Amagi never got caught up in that web, of necessity and pride and arrogance that drove Mahoro and other boys like him to this. He was glad he never saw him on the island.

The next spring he had transferred to Genei.

***

  
  
  
  
There was a legend, one of those told in between classes during stormy days, when the sky was even gloomier and the lights inside the building even more artificial than necessary, making everyone appear greenish, out of this world.

Those tales of ghosts and mouth slit women who corner you when you’re rushing home. Tales such as these exist in all schools throughout Japan, maybe even the world, as far as Mahoro knows. He doesn’t care much, but his team mates blabber about this and that ghost, or the hands without a body near 8-C class. Or the suicidal pact some girls made, long ago, on the train tracks. They are interested in this sort of thing, it mesmerizes them. For a second their eyes glisten like they almost believe it, the tales of long-necked women and music room pianos’ playing by themselves.

Maybe even sunny Raimon has tales such as these, maybe Amagi likes them now. He had been afraid of ghosts but he did have a thing for wanting to seem tougher than he was, as if Mahoro couldn’t tell even then he needed him for protection. And Mahoro doesn’t believe in urban legends, nor ghosts, but remembering how much Amagi needed him leaves him a haunting feel worse than any story.

His team mates are gathering around now, so a story will be told quick, just before practice. They side eye at him, their captain. Mahoro stands tall and quiet and their captain, holding his school bag as he unlocks his locker. He won’t tell them off though, let them have their fun.

Locker rooms are meant for this kind of talk, for loud secrets you don’t want to stay secret, for presumptuous lies, for smuggled magazines and tobacco. All whispered between laughs and awkward teenager gags, ageless tales and ageless jokes. Who knows how many times these walls have listened to these same stories, from the mouth of different narrators?

“So it goes like this”, Ozuno starts, flips a purple streak to the side as he nonchalantly holds his team mates’ attentions “That this one guy once went to this school. And those hydrangeas outside are older than they seem, they may be something else.”

“Wait is this going to be about a scary woman again? A hydrangea woman?” grunts Hakono from the other side of the room, his words gushed under the sweater he is pulling over his torso.

“No, just listen.” Ozuno is upset at the interruption and begins pulling his socks up to his knees. “There was this guy who really went to this school alright? My cousin told me this. They told him too when he attended a few years ago. He was on the track team.”

Fudano scoffs, the Shiranui twins scoot closer.

“So this guy. He is very popular and top of the class. All the girls want him—“

“What’s his secret?”, one of the twins asks.

“Yeah, what was he like? When did this take place anyway?”, asks the other.

“_Let me finish_.”

Ozuno’s jaws tightens and both Hakono and Toriyuki laugh, both heavy thunder laughter and goblin screech respectively.

“He was a regular guy. And he had it all right. Ogi-san they called him, but I have no idea—actually, no one knows if this was his real name. Much like in these stories, anyway. He walks by the hydrangea just outside our south exit you see? Every single day he does this. Weird thing is, he talks to it. He talks to the hydrangea every day. Brings it neat packages of what look to be books but there is always a weird iron smell about them.”

Silence. Everyone is expecting a ghost or a youkai to show in the narrative and turn things interesting.

“Classmates followed him around, they always found him alone, near hydrangeas. Nobody knew where he lived, and suddenly everyone realized nobody recalled him from primary school, or from seeing him at the market around town. Transfers weren’t rare but soon enough they all started to ponder, ‘so when did Ogi-kun join our class?’ And so on and so on, and nobody could really tell. Nobody could really place it.

But he was so polite, all smiles and charming words. They never saw him in the locker rooms, or the cafeteria, they thought he was just shy and preferred to keep to himself. He would join school clubs but never hung out with his classmates. But it was a different time then, and people were even less outspoken to each other. Nobody was going to ask him directly especially if nothing was particularly wrong. For a nice guy, he doesn’t seem to have any type of friends for that matter.

It was on their last year of school here, they were preparing a big party to celebrate sports day, something to encourage everyone to dive in and to collect money to rebuild the east alley of the building. I am sure you all know what I’m talking about now. The new classrooms? Students got nearly half the money to repair that part of the school. Like I said, this was years ago.

And no one was as good as this one guy. No one tried as hard as he did, no one smiled or was into so many club activities like he was. They say he organized a great deal, bringing student council and teachers together and everything was a success.

Except, like all things, it rained that day. It rained so much they had to close the fair, the sports day ruined and the student council refunded all the tickets to the parents and siblings of the students who participated in it.”

The only sound now is the _tap tap_ of the rainwater outside, setting the mood. The twins keep playing with the zippers of their jackets, even Kurenai is attentive, his gaze away from the blue-ish screen of his phone, his thumb pressing on something so it will still be there once the story is over. And Ozuno quickens his pace again, that purple mesh of hair is front of his left eye again as he excitedly narrates and monopolizes everyone’s attention.

Mahoro sets his school uniform aside in his locker.

“The students rescheduled everything with the parents though, as everyone was keen on helping the school. There weren’t any classes by then on the east building, the wood there had gotten swollen by the rain, and the floor was cracking and opening by the tree roots underneath. A mess. So they reschedule.”

_Tap, tap, tap,_ the rainwater makes. Mahoro begins to tie his shoes.

“It was Sunday then, so no school. And it kept raining, and raining, and raining. There was a huge flood in the city—go ahead ask your parents and grandparents this is true. It really happened.”

“It is true.”, says Kurenai quietly, his gaze fixating on the team, his thumb still holding something in place on his phone “It was on the newspapers at the time. One of the biggest floods in the region.”

Everyone nods. They believe Kurenai better than Ozuno; besides being less prone to pranks or strange tales, his family is old money. They have lands in the mountains and own the local spring water brand. The silence verifies this thrust.

“The flood comes and goes. It shows in the newspapers, even on national TV. Everyone has a hard time especially in the country side, where crops are lost and animals die. Even the docks overflow, the rain wouldn’t stop. Everyone volunteered to help and students cursed at the skies. And prayed. Or they did both because that is what you do in these situations.

Except one day, four days into cloud and night, it stops. The whole town holds a prayer, fortunately no lives were lost and everyone was accounted for.

Except one lost soul.”

_Tap, tap, tap…_

“Classes begin again, under the sun. The east hall was completely destroyed, but the rest of the school was unharmed, a few broken windows, one or two rooms thrashed by the storm but that’s it.

Days go by, the sun shines, lays off to rest, the moon takes its place. Same cycle over and over. When it rains, it is in small sprinkles, they’re over in minutes, only enough to damp the earth and give it life.

Ogi-san is still missing but as he had no friends or family, his classmates ignore his empty chair, thinking he transferred or got sick.

The flowers bloom and so do the hydrangeas. That’s when everyone remembers that strange but very polite kid from their class. Rumors start to pass, but they never last long. Whatever this guy is, was, is as illusive in absence as he was in lessons. The hydrangeas bloom, the east side of the school gets thorn down.

Years pass and it gets reconstructed as we know it.

Now this one time, two girls are walking home. They’re late because they were either on cleaning duty or manager duty, who knows. So they go by the south exit, in a hurry to get home. It is getting dark and the new moon is dark in the sky, there is no light. Their route is surrounded by hydrangeas, fresh and blooming and this is how they know their route down the hill to the main road. The hydrangeas those years bloomed all kinds of colors, must’ve been from the terrains the waters washed out. But anyway.”

He pauses, checks his audience, and scratches his nose. “They make their way through the shrubberies, it’s almost like a tale right? This is, until one of them trips and falls, right by a bush of pink and red hydrangeas. Under the absent moonlight they look dark, grey-ish and moving slightly with the wind.”, there is a swoosh of the wind outside and a few freshmen tremble.

“’Kyaaa Ayu-chan!!’ yells her friend. ‘Oh no Ayu-chan!’”

Ozuno’s falsetto is horrible and pierces through the silence like a knife.

Outside a branch sways with the wind, hits the upper windows of the locker room. There is a squeal from behind the goalies, a freshman no doubt. But no one will rat him out just yet.

“Her friend screams and pulls her up ‘Ayu-chan! Ayu-chan are you okay!’, they’re both yelling by now, completely in the dark and their skirts and shirts full of dirt and mud. And that’s when they see it.”

The rain taps more aggressively now, drowns everything outside with it.

“That’s when they see it… around the fallen girls’ ankle shines a bony skeletal hand, just underneath the hydrangeas. They yell and seek help as they should and…

The hydrangeas are red, blood-red, and the hand is bone white, nothing else is found, no body, no way to match it with someone in the school either. For a while this is kept between the teachers and police only, the girls so traumatized they could’t speak.

Was that Ogi-san’s fate or someone else’s? The fact is nobody can really explain how would a body dissolve into earth to feed a hydrangea that big, that’s impossible given the timeline right?”

Everyone looks around, eyes full of doubt. The climax wasn’t as expected, the story was too long. Even Kurenai is back on his phone now, whatever he kept on hold now scrolled past and seen. And voices start raising.

“They say he was devoured by the hydrangeas.”

“So before that he brought them meat? And then he became flower food… that’s it?” Araki says, his deep brows wrinkling as if trying to believe it.

“No big lesson?”

“But nobody even knew him or his family…? Seems fishy.” scoffs Fudano, ever the sceptic.

“Maybe the meat he gave the flowers was his family.”

“Ew. What if he was a demon, though.”

“Do you really believe that crap Machi? Are you eight?”

“So the hand was Ogi-san’s? Did he live down there or something?” the twins laugh, the tension is lifted. “Maybe he hid under the shrubs to peek under girls’ skirts!”

There is a general chuckle and even the freshmen easy up a bit.

“Nope. Just don’t study nor get too involved in school I guess.”

“Meh, he was probably a ghost or something.” Douhara mutters under his breath.

“If you were a ghost why the hell would you be coming to class??”

“You’re so full of it. That’s the weakest story I have heard about this school.”

The twins are hotheads, both of them, only useful on the field and now they’re starting a fight with Ozuno over a stupid hag’s tale that barely kept them entertained as it rained. Ozuno shakes his fists. Ooki and Toriyuki whistle at them, expecting a show.

“Well if you have something better why dontcha--!”

“--Why don’t you go to the fields—“ a voice interrupts, a deep growling voice. Mahoro’s voice, his patience spent. “-and run your first laps. The rain will do you well if you’re so hotheaded you need to fight.” Mahoro says and silence falls.

Half the team is hunched over the doorway waiting for the rain to pass, their hoods up and knees close together. Their coach is late, but Mahoro never is. He adjusts his captain band on his arm.

“What are you expecting? Get to practice.”

His tone is flat, but like all volcanoes he hides a fury inside and his mates know it. They’re all late for practice and Mahoro is their captain, so they do as they are told.

“It was just a stupid story.” Mutters one of the freshman zipping up his hoodie, as he rushes by Mahoro, who is holding the door open until all members are on the field.

Outside it’s raining, making three in the afternoon feel like it’s already six.

Everyone starts running, hooded or not. The rain barely touching the ground now as they run through puddles. As he runs, Mahoro notices their eyes side eying the hydrangeas in the distance, the pastel flowers dancing in the wind.

***

  
  
He lays under the rain, the damp earth beneath him, the flowers and shrubs grow and grow about him. Absorbing the rain water and laying a flowery trap under the hydrangeas, the rain turns blood-red, after the color of his own heart.

Mahoro wakes up with a gasp, drenched in sweat.

How did such a stupid story get to him anyhow? Hydrangeas. He can almost smell the iron scent of blood and feel their fresh leaves against his face in the darkness of his room.

He lies back down, tries to fall to sleep again. He isn’t scared. He knows what dreams mean and don’t mean. Nothing more, nothing less. He turns to the other side, closes his eyes but lays awake until sunrise. There are no shadow figures and no skeletal hands to startle him. He has seen so much worse.

He chooses not to believe his nightmare.  
  


***

His older sister is by the kitchen door, adjusting her short red hair in the small mirror by the entrance. It just won’t stay in place as she fights with her barrette.

Mahoro’s older siblings, one brother and one sister, are already done with university and both have jobs. His sister works at a convenience store nearby and has made a habit of dropping in food time to time. His bother lives in another city, just a few kilometers away from Inazuma town. He works in an office.

They visit sometimes, almost as often as Mahoro’s parents are actually home, which is just as rarely. Their parents’ jobs involve a lot of traveling, especially overseas. Being reserved and independent runs in the family so nobody messes with anyone’s business. He looks at the kitchen counter, a mass of three plastic bags with a cute green mascot printed on them. His sister brought him some food it seems.

“Tadashi-kun”, she begins, her words dragging out, “I went by on a few errands and thought about dropping by! We had a few discounts at the shop so I brought you a few things.”

Mahoro nods at her.

“I can do groceries and cook for myself you know.”

Most of the stuff she got him is actually raw, ready to be cooked. Much more pleasing than ready-made. Her days of buying him onigiri and apple juice boxes are long gone however.

“I do know that. But I figured well, it can’t hurt. I bought some extra things for mom and dad too but I guess they’re gone this week and I just forgot.”

“Business again.”

They sit in the living area a while, Mahoro makes some tea for him and his sister as she talks away. She was always the most talkative in the family. Mahoro listens politely and sips a bit of the tea, which is too hot and scalds his lips a bit.

“Oh yeah I just remembered—“, she blows the tea, adjusts her barrette again, “The other day, on my way to meet a few friends, I saw Ama-kun? Amo-tan? Hmm, I forgot his name but you were very close together when you were kids.”

Mahoro burns his lips again on the tea, but all of him is ice now. Like a torrent of acid rain was dropped on him, both hot and cold, his heart beating through the roof.

“…Amagi?”

And his name is both bitter and sweet as it rolls on his tongue, like an abandoned word he is not supposed to say out loud.

“Yes that chubby kid! Whatever happened to him anyway... Looked like he was Raimon now. He looked happy though, but his team mates are so loud!”, she dozes off, her head in a pillow, one hand behind her head. Maybe she will take a short nap. Her shift for today is over and she still has to walk her pet dog, so she won’t stay long.

Mahoro’s fists are white, the palms of his hands as red as his hair. He is sure even the birds outside can hear his heart pounding now. It is one thing to remember someone you try hard to forget, to make them into a cut out piece of paper and let the wind take them. It is one thing to imagine their name, words that aren’t spoken. It is another to hear their name, to know they’re close and well and doing great without you, without him. _Amagi_, it floats around his thoughts like a butterfly, carefree in the breeze.

Why wouldn’t Amagi be happy without him anyway? That is what he wanted, what he worked for.

His sister leaves with a sing-song goodbye and Mahoro is left arranging the groceries she got for him. The plastic bags with the green smiling mascot are all crumpled up now, and the mascot seems to be scowling at him, a scolding face much like his own.

His heart hasn’t stopped pounding, and he ignores it the best he can.

Cooking helps. He sighs, gets the apron and does just that.

***

  
  
Everyone has forgotten about the blood hydrangeas and the missing boy tale by the next week as expected.

Exams are coming up and so is Holy Road. Ghosts can wait but life can’t.

  
Mahoro finds it harder and harder to repress his memories of Amagi, to send his thoughts away. The only time he is free is on the field but even there he is conditioned, by the arranged matches, the arranged goals, his own arranged disguise of a stoic boy with nothing going on.

Mahoro has grown too fast and there was no potion to tend to his heart, no thread to mend its seams. The bruises and blisters first red, then blue, purple, a sickly yellow, faded like stars in a dawning sky. The bruises and blisters are gone. His eyes turned hard and cold. Inside him something foul molded his guts away and stained them like rotten fruit.

That night he dreams about Amagi and he knows he will be seeing him soon.

***

  
A fortnight passes.

He lays awake at night again, the ceiling a pale grey staring back at him. He forgets he was ever awake at all during the day; everything a blur of matted grey-ish blues, of rain, dark corridors made darker, uniforms and hydrangeas.

He had been downtown just a few hours ago, after training. And he had seen Amagi like he predicted.

He was hoping to, it had to happen sometime.

It had rained and the hydrangeas looked even fuller, thirstier for the rainwater than normal.

They both already knew they would be playing against each other. Mahoro wanted to sound as detached as possible and his eyes were piercing cold. He was preparing for a battle, preparing for Amagi to throw himself at him and punch him to the damp ground. Something real, something physical, a fist fight, a cuss thrown at him. Something from Amagi to light Mahoro’s rage and give it a place to be.

Instead Amagi’s eyes were watery and his voice trembled when he spoke. And Mahoro nearly took a step back, clutching to his umbrella like a weapon, flashes of his childhood passing through his eyes.

_“We will defeat you at Holy Road.”_

_“Why did you stop being my friend.”_

_“You can’t really get it can you? We will win.”_

_ “Mahoro why don’t you answer me…”_

_“There is nothing else left to say.”_

The conversation plays in his head like a broken record and he feels it under the fabric of his shirt, like mildew growing around his heart and poisoning it, like it was fresh ground where it rained as well. And where hydrangeas are sure to be starting to grow, consuming him.

Mahoro dreams of Amagi again, and guilt starts to slowly spread in his chest too.

  
***

  
Mahoro doesn’t often weave stories, he doesn’t partake in them. His kamen rider toys have long been given away.

On the field he surprises with force, tentative aggressiveness but also patience and manipulation. It took him fourteen years to realize what a great liar he was. Especially to himself.

He is barely getting any sleep these days. Between three to four hours of sleep that week, is enough to get him functional enough for classes and captain duty. He works out to exhaustion so that when he does sleep, it is dreamless and restful. He works out to exhaustion until all he wants to do is throw up, maybe he will throw up his heart for good measure.

At no costs can he let himself slip away again.

Suddenly their Holy Road match with Raimon isn’t just a scribble on their clubroom calendar, months, days away. Suddenly its hours away.

The calm before a storm.

He isn’t expecting a great game, he expects a win. They have had a good season so far, Fifth Sector has allowed them to. When they win Mahoro almost feels the real taste of victory in his tongue, although it is another lie he tells himself.

The twins have joked about magic tricks all week, a way to counter balance the electricity in the air, the sense of doom dreading about them and the date of the game. They had even brought playing cards in the bus, making a ruckus in the back between freshmen and the older players.

Mahoro seats in the front with their coach, going over whatever he has to tell him: last-minute annotations, last-minute notes. Plans of the stadium they will be playing at, its quirks, statistics, strengths, weaknesses, names. Of his and Raimon’s players. Mahoro nods and nods. He has studied this team well, he has known the score for weeks. They are meant to smash them, to give them the evil eye other teams so often rumor about, to turn their hopes into despair. He knows that, he has turned it into a mantra by now.

He reads the statistics, avoids the names until he sees Amagi, then his throat is dry again.

He drinks from his bottle and turns his head to the window a while, closes his eyes and dozes off for a few minutes.

It hadn’t been like this with the other schools, all had been planned and adjusted beforehand, agreed between both parties. All was fair.

But Mahoro and his team knew, they knew of the revolutionary wind and that more and more teams were revolting against the system. Romantic at best but what would that get them anyway? Raimon was trying to ruin its reputation even more, turning on the very system that held these very games. They were trying to make a war out of a school sport, and it was beginning to feel as alarming as it was.

What did they know about the Fifth Sector? His team had been given passes to training camps, scholarship help, counselling ways to level up, a new stadium, better school equipment, better gym refurbishing. It was a fair deal. Even at the cost of everything else.

He can hear the thundering of a crowd above them. The stands, their whole school and Raimon’s sympathizers, their feet stamping to their seats like they’re about to witness a battle in the colosseum.

Mahoro closes his fists and adjusts his uniform, his captain armband. He closes his locker and faces his team. He is calm but inside he is ablaze. Cold, cold, cold. The mood inside it is cool as ice, silenced glares expecting to unleash on the field.

Raimon was spitting on everything they had been given. Not everyone was as lucky to be born into what they wanted, not everyone was allowed to stay a child for that long.

It was all full provocation. Raimon’s acts and words.

Acting like everyone else were the bullies.

***

The adrenaline rush clouds his vision, pumps his blood. He orders his teammates according to plan, but with enough leftover space for surprises.

He sees Amagi from the corner of his eye, playing defense. Of course he would. Like he is waiting for him to dare cross their lines, to dare pass through him.

But it doesn’t matter now. If it will come the time to face him on the goal, he will. His resentment boils him to his core but something doesn’t feel right. The lights of the stadium are blinding, the neon glows mixed with both the crowd and field noises feel off. Everything feels made of plastic except himself and the other people on the field.

The atmospheric clashes of kenshin and their sheer force seem like clouds bumping together, a storm at different ends of the field. His own kenshin trailing like a dark shadow behind him, cold on his back although he feels so hot, so feverish and raw. His passes and shoots becoming angrier, more desperate.

All had become chaos.

Raimon has spat on the hand that tried to feed them; that had fed them before. But Raimon was also beating the odds they had devised, all the statistics and all the orders congregations of men above them had decided about the sport like politics.

It is starting to show that luck is not at all on their side.

  
  
***  


There is a lot to say but so little time.

And clocks suddenly remind Mahoro of Russian roulletes, spiraling out of control like he feels he is doing, like time has just done to him.

He is panicking, yelling at Amagi, who is sturdy, a solid force and a solid heart of Raimon defending against Mahoro. This final clash he imagined a thousand times but never once like this.

And suddenly it’s over.

The score reads _4-3_ in big bold neon numbers, the crowd moves in waves of sound and color. The only way for him to absorb their utter defeat is to close his senses but he can’t, everything is deafening, screaming with sounds and light.

The roulette stops. The stadium seems stopped in time, like Mahoro is inside a slot machine at a Casino. The clouds above close in and it feels like it may rain later that night. He is reminded of the hydrangeas closing in on him, of his dream. The one he told himself to forget, among all the others.

Mahoro was wrong.

***

  
  
The air feels humid, but not clammy. It feels fresh and the flowers reflect the changing colors of the sky.

Mahoro wonders how battlefields look years, centuries after great wars were fought in them. Grass stained by blood, flowers too. But this was no war, no battle, just a match. A stupid match between schools and he nearly feels ashamed at how deep he let himself get into this, sculpted of lead and fire and bad luck.

Amagi knew now, how weak Mahoro really was.

Mahoro knew Yukie was behind this meeting post-game, as well as that scrawny Raimon boy, all bug-eyed and looking up to Amagi. It is almost heartwarming, but he feels the weight of shame in him lift up and down, passing like clouds in the sky. Will it rain again or not? Will he feel better or worse tomorrow?

He presses a small daisy between his thumbs, caressing it thoughtless.

“Were you waiting for me?”

He turns. Amagi is in his track suit, zipped up and bag by his side.

“Yes. Is your bus leaving soon?”

“We still have a few minutes.”

Mahoro feels awkward, out of any argument he ever had to make. His eyebrows soften as he sighs.

Both boys sit down on the stairs, near the exit of the stadium. It’s quiet, really quiet. Everybody from both schools using the main entrances to exit, his own team still in the locker room half-dressed, half sulking. He thinks about them for a bit, but his gaze meets Amagi’s eyes and they’re all on him, confused, pained and waiting.

He could stay like this and not utter a word until Amagi and himself had to part ways again, but he won’t.

There isn’t much he can say to help his situation, after yelling at each other on the field they’re both quiet, so tired, so drained. Amagi won but he looks like he also lost something along the way. Like Mahoro.

“Congratulations…” begins Mahoro “You, hum, played really well. You and your team I mean.”

Amagi turns to the side a bit, plays with his fingers nervously, but his words don’t falter when he speaks next.

“You never told me why you stopped being my friend.”

Mahoro feels that sensation again, ice down his back, fire on his chest.

“Ah, that… I.”

_Was trying to protect you?_

He can’t really apologize after all this time. Everything he can say feels fake, sounds fake. Next to Amagi he just feels it even more, how terrible he really got to be.

The sun is setting and a few crows cross the orange skies. There must be quite a commotion on the other side of the stadium, as they begin to listen to the muted crowd noises.

Amagi continues.

“That’s okay. You were always so awesome and even though you guys lost… I thought you were really good on the field.” Amagi tries to smile but it is fruitless.

He has already proven Mahoro he was wrong. There is no conversation from both that can mend years of misunderstandings. Misunderstandings Mahoro had been the one to conjure, to defend Amagi but carrying his own guilt like a martyr, a weakling.

He will have to shed his skin, the bile in his throat wouldn’t feel so sour. Maybe the weight in his heart will lighten, flowers instead of lead. Maybe.

“You were my first friend.” Mahoro finally hears himself say and Amagi looks surprised, eyes glimmering. “You were my first friend Amagi.”

It still feels odd, saying his name again after so many years, bitter and sweet, nostalgia riddled with memories and repressed feelings.

But it feels good too, like he is dusting away something dear to him, lost somewhere.

He tells Amagi then. He finally does. How it had been easier to protect Amagi from the bullies by becoming the target himself. If he wasn’t close with him there was no way those boys could find Amagi and hurt him. And Mahoro could hold his ground. Or he thought he could.

He grew to fight and hate them even more. He would close his bedroom door with bloodied knuckles and a bruised cheek and a soccer ball under his arm dropping to the floor.

He had vowed to become stronger. Every afternoon when he got home after a fight, he got a little stronger, a little more scarred, his gaze more and more reclusive. His heart painted with lead as he hid away his photo of Amagi, the one he, Amagi and Yukie shared ice cream and stayed up late in the park playing soccer and Kamen Rider. His favorite day ever.

He wasn’t allowed to look at it anymore, he wasn’t allowed to look at Amagi anymore.

He knew who he was and he would die if Amagi knew.

It is luck and change that mold you, so as long as he could hide it and make it different, Amagi would be safe. And Mahoro would be… away from it all, and stronger.

He didn’t tell Amagi what the boys really said to him, what insults they threw at him and Amagi to his face, spitting venom and words meant to hurt more than fists. Not now, in the steps of the Pinball Stadium. That would not be a conversation for that day.

Deep down Mahoro already knew who he was. But he did not want his first friend to go through the same trials he ever did. Amagi was untainted, not broken and rotten like him.

No wonder Mahoro felt his chest so tight just being near him again.

Drawn to what he couldn’t have.

He closes his knuckles again, the daisy has long been smashed, pulpy yellow and white petals in Mahoro’s palm. Amagi looks at it, curious. He is blushing a bit from Mahoro’s story, but Mahoro can’t tell at what parts.

“Thank you. But… I wish we had been there to fight them together. The bullies I mean! I never wanted to be a hassle.”

“Amagi…”

“It’s true. I am sorry I was a wimp when I was a child, and you were so brave and I didn’t even--!”

He nearly gets up, as worked up as he is, his voice louder now. Amagi always wore his emotions on his sleeve, unlike Mahoro. Unlike most people Mahoro knew. The real difficulty was living in the light, open to others, not in the darkness, mouth full of tricks and eyes meaning nothing at all.

Amagi has grown big and so strong, he witnessed it on the field just moments before. But he looks like he grew even softer too, he always had a big heart.

He is able to look after himself now, and he has so many friends. Raimon seems united in their hectic little efforts of a revolution. And after what he saw today, Mahoro thinks they may actually make it.

He doesn’t bother predicting the future anymore, it’s not his place. He is exhausted, his head hurts and his heart won’t stop drumming madly.

They stay in silence for a while longer. Mahoro doesn’t believe he will be forgiven just then. But maybe for a short moment it will be like when they were kids, when feelings were simple and outright said, when it was easier to laugh.

Just a few words, just today right here.

“I missed you.”

Amagi beat him to it. Amagi was the stronger one of the two, he always had been.

He wasn’t a coward, he never hid from Mahoro. He looks hopeful as he waits for an answer, a look as he fidgets and goes back to look at his shoelaces.

Mahoro’s whole body pumps blood where there been only lead and clay until this day. His eyes faltering and his nostrils breathing hard as he looks to the side, afraid of giving himself away.

Like an enchantment he is turning back to flesh, like his body is fully anew. But he doesn’t feel completely adapted to it yet. He isn’t a monk in the mountains seeking perfection, he isn’t a young boy on an island scrapping his knees against rock as he runs until he is out of air. There are no red hydrangeas to trap his blood and keep it from flowing to his fingertips, his face. He also isn’t the dark faced statue he cursed himself to be. He is just himself. And Amagi is there, talking to him.

His insides hurt like bruised fruit, his head feels light and he takes a long breath.

Mahoro licks his lips before talking. It takes him a while to turn his gaze back to Amagi.

“I just wanted to protect your smile.”

Amagi’s cheeks turn pinkish and before Mahoro even reacts to what he himself said, he accepts it.

And Mahoro lets himself smile as well.

***


	2. Bruised violets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They’re quiet for a while and Amagi wonders if Hyoudou is to Minamisawa something good and new, what he had wanted and couldn’t find before. He wonders about what Mahoro is to him, or what Mahoro thinks of him now. He still can’t tell, even after everything.

Amagi's chest feels lighter than it has in years.

After the game everything seemed easier. It had started simple enough, a few texts, a few calls. A walk to their favorite soccer childhood playground in the park once.

He felt like he had been holding his breath for a long time. There was nothing to be done about his feelings so he didn't do anything about them, for years. Now they were loose like butterflies. Thoughts boring at the back of his mind making his cheeks glow during classes and school hours or even lunch time, when he checked his phone. It distracted him during practice too, butterflies indeed, floating all around him, just by remembering something, a phrase, a word, shared between them.

His mind is lost somewhere. Kurama extends his arms over some failed goal he just attempted with Amagi, frowning like he always does.

“What the hell I said ‘go’!”

“I’m listening! I’m listening! Sorry!”

He really isn’t. Not listening anyway. But he_ is_ sorry, it's not Kurama's fault he can't focus lately.

Kurama kicks the ball over to him, still grunting something between his teeth. “Yeah sure whatever! You’re acting so weird!”

Weird. Yes, he supposes he has been acting a bit weird. He never held secrets until now. It feels good, it feels warm in his heart.

He kicks back and the training resumes, everyone back to their roles, their posts. Kurama doesn’t call Amagi out on his sudden air headedness again.

A while later, coach Kidou claps his hands and sends everyone to shower.

“That was fun wasn’t it senpai!” Kageyama pats him in the back with a gentle smile. “But you seem distracted, is everything okay?”

“Ah yes! I am just tired! So many exams coming up…”

“Ohhh no… don’t remind me senpai! You will be gone! Do you know which schools you will apply to?”

“Not yet… but argh! I will miss Raimon.”

And he means it, oh he means it so much, more than his heart can handle. And there is a choir of “awwws” from Tenma and the others. Kurama scoffs but his heart is not in it. Who will he get mad at once he becomes the senpai? Even Tsurugi gives him a look. Everyone is too tired to think.

It is still months away.

His phone has a new message when he checks his bag on the way out, just as he predicted.

***

  
  
_The leaves are starting to fall. Hard to believe so many years went by, isn’t it?_  
  
Amagi doesn’t answer right away. His choice of text emojis not properly covering the emotions he has felt lately.

  
  
***

Amagi and Mahoro have been texting and e-mailing for weeks, months even. After estrangement and misunderstanding, things are getting along albeit a bit tentative still. Mahoro seems happy, no longer carrying a burden he seemed to hold on for years. And so Amagi is happy too. Not holding back on emoji or on his happiness. Yukie is there too, joining them in chats sometimes. She does not intrude between them much however, being a third link that was never lost. Amagi is under the impression she has been talking to Kageyama too, somehow.

It has been nice talking to everyone all together.

Messages aren’t constant but they’re there, a clickable name and face from his childhood he can count on again. Besides his team mates, his friends from school. Especially now that so many things are changing and everyone is preparing for high school.

Summer had been a bit dull, full of rain and long hot nights. 

It seems everyone lost their minds once the moon was gone and then back again. Amagi had been busy training under the captaincy of Kirino, and those who stayed behind like them had only a few more things to worry about.

When Shindou, Tenma, Tsurugi and the others came back, they came back as the moon did, as if they had never left.

And on earth, summer was over.

Amagi isn’t a complicated guy, he has always loved soccer, his friends and food. These are constant. He wasn't very good at studying but he did try, and he gets through school exams just slightly below average.

Sangoku is the smart one, the mature one of the three oldest members left at Raimon. The kind one who offers him and Kurumada extra help with their homework. They meet on Sunday mornings and he always makes them sandwiches and tea, serving them up in a tray when their minds are about to explode. Sangoku gets the hang of living mostly by himself, his mother always busy. Both Kurumada and Amagi come from big, big families, so this their only place to find some peace and quiet. Even if they have to be surrounded by math and japanese classics and Sangoku's calm voice going over and over until the subject of the day gets through their heads.

Amagi knows these rituals are about to change too, for all of them. Kurumada struggles like him, always thinking more of the field than the future in the books in front of him. The three of them have become closer, just as relations in Raimon seemed to have waxed and waned like the moon. Tenma was back to being their captain, but their time with Kirino and new blood on the team had only served to make the three of them notice how little time they had left in school. So they practiced harder than ever, but also had to study harder than ever.

Mahoro offered to help Amagi with homework once or twice, but Amagi was too distracted really, too over the moon to be on speaking terms again. He did not want to waste their time together going over old books, math, sharing his clumsy writing and the stupid notes Kurama had written on his notebook once he left it in the clubroom. How embarrassing! Mahoro’s notebooks were always so neat and orderly, like Sangoku’s or Shindou’s. Almost too perfect, too controlled.

“Well since you don’t let me help you… here.” And he had lent a few of his school notebooks to him, the ones he could study from as they had the same program.

Mahoro’s eyes had shined differently when Amagi took them. He still has them by his bedside table. How pathetic, he thinks to himself, but just knowing Mahoro is back to trusting him—and wanting to help him… it makes him so self-conscious to look at that handwriting, Mahoro's handwriting, in his room. It’s only school stuff, but it could be a diary and it would feel the same. Like having Mahoro in his room with him.

He blushes red and tries to go over this math formula for the fourth time that afternoon.

Minamisawa used to lend them his notebooks too, when he was at Raimon.

He was always the most sarcastic and unbashful, even beyond necessity, but Amagi misses him sometimes. His notes were just like him, direct to the point, his compositions fancy but his hard work was relentless, no matter how much he hated the subject.

It would have been different to have him here now. He feels it in his third year companions too, now they’re all too old to really pass the Raimon torch, as it is totally in the hands of Tenma like a guiding light they had been all following before. They're too old but they will be too young at their new schools next year, and will start it all over again. Amagi is anxious, change always leaves a hole in his tummy.

Now that Minamisawa has gone to Gassan Kunimitsu, he is actually nicer than before. He smiles more often and his technique is better too. There are a few things Amagi would like to ask him, but he can’t stomach how he would do that. They had never been close, on the same way Sangoku and Kurumada had been to him. Although… something about Minamisawa seemed to have changed and that change had been noticed only by him, of all his old mates. Minamisawa was content with visiting sometimes, playing against or with them. It was odd. But he probably felt grateful too, some part of him that had been angry at them, at Raimon had shriveled away.

“I didn’t realize you guys liked me this much until I was gone.”, he smirks to his sundae. His eyes are playful and Hyoudou sits by his side, a silent mountain. They always visit together these days.

Kurumada laughs whole heartedly and Sangoku smiles with a tad of embarrassment.

“Not at all!”

“Come on! You’re always so mean!”

“It’s true though… you never fully appreciated my presence at Raimon.”

“Ahh shut it, you were the one who never fully answered our messages when you drifted off to another school!”

They laugh again. These topics used to hurt but not anymore. Now they can have milkshakes and ice cream and watch the people shop around them. It’s a beautiful day.

Amagi laughs too, but like anything Minamisawa says, it is true. And he wonders about it, and what he said. As he looks down to his fingers and his half-eaten ice cream his eyes meet Minamisawa’s for a second.

***

The sun is going down and it is only beginning to get chilly. Amagi should have brought a jacket but he forgot in the rush of leaving. Kurumada, Sangoku and Hyoudou are finishing paying their part and Amagi and Minamisawa are waiting outside, as the sky turns pink and orange.

They’re not speaking beyond the usual “how is this, how is that, is Tenma still annoying” from Minamisawa, but Amagi feels more relaxed than he ever felt before with him. He often felt like Minamisawa was a bit intimidating, more so than his current mountain captain. His eyes could say mean things when his lips meant otherwise, and then he had just left Raimon like that…

Amagi had felt hurt by it even though not for long. It just felt like Minamisawa had suddenly cut ties with his old friends, and he knew how that felt. He blushes, not for Minamisawa but because Mahoro will be visiting in a few weeks. Things are changing for all of them, not just Minamisawa.

They’re quiet for a while and Amagi wonders if Hyoudou is to Minamisawa something good and new, what he had wanted and couldn’t find before. He wonders about what Mahoro is to him, or what Mahoro thinks of him now. He still can’t tell, even after everything.

He takes his phone out of his pocket and re-reads the message. It’s stupid and silly, but he does it sometimes. It is at that moment that Minamisawa speaks.

“Hey so, Hyoudou was wondering if you knew any good food places open 'till late? We are leaving on the morning train but he wanted to try the Raimon rame—“

Minamisawa stops. An elegant hand on his waist as he cocks his head to the side, curious.

“Amagi. What’s that?”

Amagi hides his phone behind his back, not that it will help any. It’s not the phone that Minamisawa is curious about anyway.

“Nothing! So hum… ramen is that it? I-I know a place! I can show you now, the bus goes through there.”

Minamisawa’s eyes turn to slits like a cat’s but his expression softens. “So that is how it is.” He mumbles and zips up his jacket, a black and gold Gassan jacket. Too big for him though, but he wears it with such pride it must have been a sizing error on Gassan’s part, or a fashion statement. Amagi never knew much about fashion.

A bell chimes and the door opens to show Kurumada dragging both Sangoku and Hyoudou by the shoulders, his huge grin as if they had been friends all their lives.

“Thank you Amagi!”, Minamisawa says later, as they walk to the bus stop. He smiles earnestly, eyes like a fox.

Why does Amagi feel like he just escaped a very strange trap?

***

  
  
That night he gets the strangest text from Minamisawa.

_“Talk to me if you wanna. Gonna be back in a few months, x.”_

Amagi knows what he means but he doesn’t have the courage to answer back.

***

High school looms in the horizon like a storm, until it is suddenly there.

They’re in rows wearing black among the pink petals. Shindou cries and Tenma hugs all his three senpai to the ground. Even Kariya seems a bit moved, although it could be allergies and it is up to Kirino to pass him some tissues during the ceremony. Kurama too is crying but he just cusses it out before Hamano and Hayami can notice it and comment on it for the whole of Raimon to hear.

Amagi cries a little, still hugging Tenma and Kageyama who is now turning this into a giant group hug. They won’t be far, Raimon High School is just a few blocks away but Amagi knows what this means now, and knows a chapter is over for good.

Amagi misses the days of middle school. Everything was new, the classes, some classmates. Fortunately, Raimon high school wasn’t so far from the middle school. But they were expected different things now, to behave certain ways, to study different things.

His classmates got into horror stories and gravure models, pink magazines and manga with big breasted girls on the covers. They hand them out in between classes, chuckling to themselves, to Amagi too, who did nothing but accept them, hiding them behind his broad back, his face flushed. Even Kurumada has gone through them, although his love for soccer magazines is high and mighty. Sangoku just declines them politely, pretending he doesn’t see them during his duties as class representative.

Amagi doesn’t know what to think of these things. He too is loud and rowdy with his companions, but high school made him less so. He flips the pages when everyone is asleep, under his covers, with a reading light like when he used to do with Mahoro as kids. He checks the magazines with the same curiosity he would check a show, or a cool series someone recommended him to watch. But he doesn’t feel the things he is supposed to when he looks at these girls.

  
Maybe it is because he is a gentle giant, said Kageyama to him one time. Kageyama the only one from Raimon who still met with him often, the one who could read his friends. Almost like Minamisawa could, although not so aggressively, and Amagi was reminded of Minamisawa’s text, still only answered with a polite “_thank you ´_´’’’…_”  
  
He drops the magazine gently back in his bag. To someone else’s house it goes. Maybe Sangoku will finally give in.

Amagi looks over to his book cases of manga and toys he collected over the years. The plastic toys shine in the darkness with the brightness of what would be the moon, but it’s just the street lights seeping in through his room curtains.

Kamen Rider was his favorite, Mahoro’s too. He has a lot of toys and books he needs to clean away now, but he can’t help himself feeling saddened by it. He keeps postponing boxing them away but his high school books will require more space, and he can’t have those old doraemon books around when his cousin’s little kids could read them.

He sighs, one hand on his soft belly as he looks at the darkness of the room. It drops to the hem of his shorts. It is definitely not girls from magazines who make him… feel the things boys his age do. He isn’t stupid nor slow. It’s just that he prefers something else.

He feels so, so embarrassed.

The only place he has felt free to do it is in the shower but then again, mornings are a mess in his house; all his siblings are up and getting ready to school, his mom and dad scrambling in the kitchen to get everyone’s lunches done in time and all the yelling and stepping around. There is no time, no privacy.

But mornings are when he wakes up, after those dreams. And he feels that daze just touching himself, his mauve hair loose around him and his belly soft under his hands, his plump thighs sticking together and his shorts feeling so tight.

Does Mahoro look at those types of magazines? Does Mahoro have a girlfriend or ever had one? Maybe he does… but maybe he would have told him that. Or Yukie would have, perhaps. Maybe he is too serious a guy to be into relationships and only wants to focus on school and exams and university.

Oh… that’s right. Mahoro will aim at the university exams early on even if they’re only a couple years away. Mahoro is smart and has goals. Amagi doesn’t know if he wants to even try. He isn’t lazy, but he isn’t very smart, nor that incredible at sports despite playing at his high school team. He is Raimon first and foremost, but… his uncles may need help with the shop and he has thought about working there next summer vacation so he starts saving up. But if he isn’t going to university what is he saving up to?

He wishes he could speak to someone about it. Kageyama, Kurumada, Sangoku… Mahoro… even Kurama, who would most likely tell him to just man up. He feels so lonely about this. Both Mahoro and Sangoku have set their goals high and study hard. Kageyama is too young to worry about this, Kurumada will probably figure something out. Join a few local sport clubs and work on the side. He doesn’t seem to mind much. Amagi wishes he could be like that.

Now he is nervous and made himself sad. He can’t sleep.  
Will Minamisawa go to college? Of course he will. But he really… has no one else to talk too at this time, this hour and he knows he isn’t just upset because of university or exams or not liking erotic magazines all that much.

_“Are you… planning on going to university? ( ._. )”_

A minute goes by, and then his phone beeps.

_“You’re awake awfully early. What is this about university?”_

_“I’m a bit nervous…...”_

Minamisawa doesn’t answer right away, and Amagi feels his stomach grow cold at the thought of having woken Minamisawa up. Those eyes could be so scary, and then there went his opportunity to find solace and a friend to talk to.

But an answer does come, and his phone flashes bright in his dark room.

_“Everyone is nervous about it. But you don’t need to go if you don’t want to. I am going I guess, but don’t count on Kurumada to go for instance. Not everyone needs to die by studying lol”_

_“Oh… I see… sorry if I woke you up ∑_ _（_ _´_ _△_ _｀_ _○_ _）_ _”_

_“You didn’t, don’t worry. I was busy.”_

Amagi ponders about this before typing his next reply. He is getting an idea of what is going on but still wonders if it had been a good idea to bother him.

_“Sorry about disturbing you...  
it’s just Mahoro is probably going to one and everyone knows what to do… and I don’t know what to do… _ _ﾍ_ _(;´o_ _｀_ _)_ _ﾍ_ _”_

_“Stop saying sorry Amagi, ughhhh… it’s so not like you. _  
_Also: Mahoro? Who is this Mahoro? Is that his name? Why am I hearing about him for the first time now?”_

He can feel his sass through the fun, but his chuckle too. Amagi imagines him lying naked in bed next to a sleeping Hyoudou, kilometers and kilometers away in an unknown faceless dorm, amused by Amagi’s lack of capacity to deal with regular things. The image is funny and probably true, but also leaves him a bit jealous.

_“Mahoro is my friend from childhood… we got to speak again after a few years. He plays for Genei.”_

_“Omg that team is freaky. Is he cute?”_

_“(′_ _︿_ _‵｡_ _) Minamisawa what……”_

_“Relax your boy is fine. I’m quite good myself these days. Ran off to another school to get hitched, didn’t you hear. Just trying to help you here, so he is going to university and you’re afraid he will leave you behind?”_

_“But we aren’t dating, I don’t know if”—_

Amagi stops midsentence. This conversation already turned too careless but Minamisawa is away and what can he really do or not to help him. Amagi breathes in and out, hoping the night air will fill his lungs with courage.

_“—I don’t know if he likes me too.”_

It’s so embarrassing to type, but he types it anyway. He never thought about these things. But he also never went through them, while Minamisawa probably has. Oh… he can already hear it now. The cackle from Gassan Kunimitsu, Minamisawa’s eyes glittering like a fox in the darkness at how pathetic Amagi must be. His chest feels so tight and his mouth is dry.

He goes to the kitchen to get a glass of water but ends up making himself a snack too. It is really late and he is glad tomorrow is a Sunday. Nothing else but revision. He is so nervous he barely eats half of his plate. The water is cold, the food is cold and his feet are cold against the tiles of the kitchen. But his head is spinning and his face is burning.

Minamisawa knowing of his crush makes it more real somehow.

When he gets back to his room, a good fifteen minutes later, his phone is flashing in the darkness with coming texts. He swallows hard and gets back under the covers. It’s not at all like he thought it would be. But then again, so is tonight proving to be.

_“That’s cute…  
Amagi why didn’t you tell me sooner?_

_…  
…_

_Did you go to sleep?”_

_“No…_  
_I thought you would mock me or I don’t know._  
_ (つ﹏<。)_  
_ I didn’t realize my feelings._  
_ We weren’t close for a long time.”_

_“Hmhmmm…… Amagi that is adorable.”_

_“I don’t know what to do…”_

_“Well I think you do.  
Do you guys talk?”_

_“Over the phone. He comes to Inazuma sometimes, we have hung out a couple times.”_

_“Boy doesn’t look to me he waste how many hours on a train or a bus just to see a childhood friend a couple times Amagi.”_

_“But I’m not…._”--

He struggles at what to say, to think, to type. Everything is coming in so fast and his heart is beating against his ribcage like a rabbit’s.

_“You’re not what? _  
_Is this because you’re chubby…_  
_ Do you think fat people don’t have sex.”_

_“Minamisawa!!! ////   
And I’m not like you.”_

_“You’re not like me, so what?  
This Mahoro likes you not me.”_

_“I told you I don’t know if he does.”_

_“There is only one way to find out ; )  
I gotta go, but aww sweet dreams Amagi._

_And good luck! x”_

Amagi holds the phone for minutes then. What had just happened and why? Minamisawa had the gift of stripping every one of their secrets, his eyes ever so calculating. But he hadn’t been mean or mocking. He hadn’t been in a long time. He learnt some kind of courage Amagi and his classmates truly lacked.

So maybe, could Amagi become courageous too?

  
***

  
The next week he passes the erotic magazine to Kurama, who is dropping by for a friendly game after classes but gets a prize instead. His face lightens up red like a Christmas tree the rest of the afternoon. Sangoku asks him if he has a fever and even Kirino tries to get him to the nurse. He flips them off, and plays like never before. 

  
***

  
  
  
In addition to the peaceful and nice Kageyama texts or the highly coveted Mahoro ones, Amagi’s phone now buzzes from time to time with texts from Minamisawa. They’re not mocking or intrusive, but it seems he found a link between them they had never shared in their three years at Raimon.

Amagi had to agree.  
  
Giving it a name truly changed things. It even changed the weather, his disposition, his appetite, his grades. The world was upside down and it wasn’t because of soccer.

The sun’s warmth was back, and the birds chirped their songs through the sky. But deep down he felt a bit guilty. And scenarios of doom and failure made themselves as known to his mind as the more pleasant ones.

What if he refused him again? What if Mahoro starts hating him then?

_“Then he isn’t worth it. But you won’t know if you don’t try.  
Do you think these things are easy for anyone?”_

How could these things ever be hard for Minamisawa? It's hard to imagine that. But Amagi doesn't really know what goes through that boy's head or heart. He is probably right.

Amagi sits down at his table, surrounded with books and new kanji and new formulas is quicker to understand at the moments than the strings of his own heart. At least he is doing some progress in school, not so far behind as when he started. He has a few tests up soon. Nothing special, but stressful enough to send him in a frenzy, together with everyone else.

Mahoro texts him good luck. And photos of the sky. Amagi smiles. They don’t really know what to say to each other sometimes, but he also feels like just talking to him, just having Mahoro knows he exists and he cares is enough.

He sighs. Maybe he should tell him once he comes to visit.

Maybe he will.

***

  
  
“Ahhh ouch!”, Amagi winces as Yukie puts a pink starry bandaid on his cheeks.

“Those guys are really mean! Sorry we were late to help you Amagi-kun…”

Yukie’s eyes were so sad and Amagi felt so sad too. He hadn’t been able to defend himself again. He looked at his tiny fists, his olive skin bruised at the knuckles with blood. His eyes watering again.

They heard feet running against the gravel ground and turn around. Mahoro is running towards them, dark bruises starting to form on his skin.

“Are they gone?” asked Yukie hopefully, helping Amagi lifting up from the ground.

Even back then Mahoro was a presence. He opened his arms in one big gesture, angry and mad.

“Yes! Those cowards! I hate them! I hate what they do to Amagi!!”

He scratched his nose then. “Crap, one of them got me in the nose too! Amagi are you okay?”

His tone changed from angry to worried and he starts running towards the other two kids again, hands on his scraped knees and amber eyes worried.

“You’re bleeding too! We should just go home!”, yelled Yukie, sick of fights. Amagi was sick of fights too. Sick of them fighting because of him.

“I can’t go home like this; my mother will yell at me again.” Amagi’s voice broke and he started to cry. He hated seeing Mahoro hurt because of him, he hated seeing him mad.

Yukie looked at them both, not knowing what to do, her tiny hello kitty first aid kit in her arms.

Mahoro’s eyes hurt and he puts a hand on his friend’s shoulder.

“You know… if they weren’t going after you, they would be going after someone else right?”

Amagi cleaned his face with his plump hands. His mother would yell at him for brawling again and Mahoro would be in trouble again for defending him next time those bullies showed up.

“Amagi look at me.”

He did, and he saw Mahoro’s eyes. Beautiful and righteous like when they played Kamen Rider.

“It’s not your fault okay? Don’t cry.”

Amagi nodded weakly. He wanted to hug against Mahoro’s white sweater but he diddn’t want to get him dirty with more blood and snot.

“Some people are just jackasses.”

Yukie covered her ears at the cussing, dropping her hello kitty tin kit on the floor. But she was smiling a bit now. All was better. The playground didn’t feel so big and scary anymore, even if the marks of the fight were still marked on the dirt, pressed leaves, scoffs on the sand, little rocks and bag packs thrown around and their contents emptied on the ground.

Mahoro held Amagi’s hands in his and traced the bruises with his fingers. As softly as touching petals; fitting, their wounds were the color of bruised violets. His hands were always cold.

Mahoro looked up and smiled.

“You gave them a fight. You will become stronger than all of them you will see.”

Amagi smiled and they went off to grab their bags and their things, putting them in place and brushing the dust away.

“By the way, Amagi.” Mahoro interrumpted after a while.

They both looked up. Amagi had stopped crying by now, all sniffles and light hiccups.

“What?”, he asked, curious.

Mahoro smiled brightly. Like he only semmed to be able to do in these occasions.

“I like the pink band aids, they’re the same color of your eyes. It looks really cool, like ninja markings.”

***

That afternoon Mahoro had volunteered to come to Amagi’s house and tell his parents all about the incidents at the park. But Amagi was too scared, he wanted to forget it all, so he did.

He has no idea why he remembered this now, on his way to meet Mahoro. But he got to the ice cream shop too early and forgot his notebooks at home so he can't read anything to pass the time. Mahoro is staying over for a few days, at his older sisters’ place. Just to see him and to hang out with him. He flushes. Maybe Minamisawa is right.

The waitresses and waiters wear cute uniforms here. Pink skirts and pink pants. The menu is good and cheap.

Funny. It’s the same ice cream shop they went to when Minamisawa and Hyoudou visited last time. Of course it is as if Minamisawa himself plotted this as the place for their meeting, but it had been Mahoro’s idea. Mahoro’s favorite flavor was strawberry. He always orders the same when they went for ice cream, even as teenagers, even now.

Amagi can’t even remember what his favorite flavor is. He can’t remember what he ate yesterday, he certainly can’t remember what he spent the last night studying.

He is so nervous, too nervous. He keeps staring at the window or his phone and counting the seconds away. His stomach growls but he does not feel hungry. He hadn’t felt hungry since he discovered he was in love with his childhood best friend. Not properly hungry, not like his usual self. He is too clouded in doubt and all his senses seemed to have stopped working. Or maybe it’s just the beating of his heart that became too loud and overloaded the sound of everything else.

“Hi.”

Mahoro nods at him, a shy smile on his lips, not that he had smiled a lot in the past few years. Both of them feel like they’re getting used to their bodies, to something left on their hearts on that day at the playground.

Mahoro sits in front of Amagi and they order.

“Are you okay?”

Mahoro asks, taking off his hoodie. His sweater is white and he looks concerned, just like that day.

“Oh--? Y-yes I’m fine.”

“You’re not eating your sundae.”

Amagi looks guiltily away, like he is being scolded by an adult. His sundae is pretty and looks delicious. The cream at the top is melting and the banana and chocolate ice cream will soon melt away in the cup. The air conditioner is too hot inside this place, Amagi’s face is too red, Mahoro’s eyes are too piercing on his.

They get out and it feels cold. Colder than it has been these days, but Amagi’s face and chest are burning alight with fear and anticipation.

“I want to tell you something.”

Amagi clutches his hands when he speaks; his breath forms small clouds against the cold air and his nails form half-moons on the inside of his palms. They hurt a little and distract him from what he has come to say today.

Amagi hides his round face in his scarf. They walk through the shops, the hordes of people leaving work or strolling until they start diminishing. Until they’re at the park. The playground.

“But please don’t stop being my friend again.”

When Mahoro answers back, his voice comes clear as water, but his eyes quiver for a second.

“I would never do that again.”

He looks disappointed and upset at himself, like he is doubting what he says.

“Do you think I would?”

“No! But! It’s just. I have something embarrassing to tell you and I don’t want you to laugh at me.”

He hides his face in his hands, seriously blushing, seriously feeling so fragile and small and like he owns a rabbit heart, thumping around in his big chest.

Mahoro looks worried now but calmer. His hands touch Amagi’s shoulders softly.

“Let’s sit over there.”

He points to a bench between two high trees, naked from their leaves. They look like skeleton hands.

“Are you going to university?"

“Yes. I guess I will apply. Why?”

“This is too early but I think I won’t... I am not very smart nor talented.-- And I was afraid because I am thinking of staying at my uncle and aunt’s shop working instead a-and we wouldn’t have anything in common to talk about and you would—“

A torrent of words comes out of his mouth like a hurricane and it leaves him out of air, momentarily dumb to the stress and the butterflies in his heart.

Mahoro chuckles, his voice unused to laugh and sounds pained when he answers him “You thought I would ditch you again? I won’t do that. I told you, but I can’t blame you for fearing it or thinking about it when you see me..."

Amagi plays with the hem of his sleeve. He is so embarrassed he could die, or turn into something really small. He feels like a mouse. At least he didn’t forget to bring a jacket this time. It’s fluffy inside and warm, and the yellow reminds him of Mahoro’s eyes.

He looks up and the skeleton hands seem like branches again, a few crows flying to it as the sky turns red.

When he looks down Mahoro is looking at him, his eyes clouded with something that makes Amagi’s stomach flip.

He drops his arms on the bench and his fingers brush Mahoro’s. They both freeze. Suddenly that point where their skin meets feels so hot, too hot for a jacket, too hot for a scarf. It is the center of the world and Amagi can’t move from it, the gravitation is pulling him in.

He is hypnotized, confused, but also, completely certain of what is about to happen.

“Amagi…” Mahoro starts leaning in, his throat is dry and his eyes are more amber than ever, pleading. “Please, let me.”

There is no one else around when they kiss. It is a small peck on the lips, more of a question than a kiss but Amagi has never kissed anyone before so he can’t say what it was supposed to feel like.

He doesn’t know what to say so he doesn’t say anything. He is afraid of spoiling anything, of turning his head and not seeing Mahoro anymore. His heart has turned into a rabbit by now, the only sound to be heard above the caw-caw of the crows.

Except, Mahoro’s heart is thumping too, and he hasn’t let go of his fingers.

“I’ve wanted to do that for a long time.”

Mahoro looks handsome when he smiles, his eyes often so tired and weary light up. And he is smiling at him, Amagi.

“Me too!” Amagi can’t help how excited his voice drops, filling the air around them. Mahoro’s shoulders drop, like the tension that had been build up. He gets up.

“Why were you hurting alone! Why didn’t you tell me!”

“Would you have believed me?”

“I don’t know… I was embarrassed of telling it to you too.”

Amagi sits back down with a thump. His head is buzzing. Mahoro closes his fingers on Amagi’s. He caresses his hand with his thumb. Like they had done as children on this very same park, one life ago.

“I’ve had a crush on you for the longest time you know. But I thought… you would be better without me. After I tried to defend you I could only get you into more trouble. I didn’t want those boys to hurt you, or to call you what they called me.”

He sighs to the sky, his profile cutting the grey clouds and the prayers for rain that rustles the small bushes around them, the skeletal hands of the trees above, the wings of the crows. Everything would be ominous if it weren’t for that feeling, that fire in Amagi’s chest.

“I wanted you to be happy. Even if I weren’t.”

“Mahoro…”

“Pretty pathetic. I’m sorry.”

“No! Listen to me! I’m happy with you. So don’t say those things! I wanted to kiss you too, I wanted to hold hands. I am just—so happy when you think of me, even if it’s a photo of the sky from your room!”

Mahoro’s eyes are dark and unreadable, but Amagi is pouring his heart out and this is not how Minamisawa would do it, but it is how he does things. Let his eyes sting and water at the cold, at the fire in his heart. He shuts his eyes.

“Don’t cry.” He hears Mahoro say, his tone soft and kind, his eyes amber again. Mahoro’s hands are holding both of his now. He wants to kiss him, he really does. His stomach is burning and all the anxiety from the past few weeks is making him hungry again, dazed and red with lust. He really wants to kiss him, to pull Mahoro to him like in his dreams, the ones where they don’t even kiss, just hug because of how much he missed him. He can’t stop crying. He feels everything now, he feels stupid, pathetic, he feels small, like a trapped rabbit. And he feels love and Mahoro’s cold fingers running through his face.

“Don’t cry.”

“I want to kiss you again.” It comes out as a whimper, only for Mahoro to hear.

But there are a few people at the park now so they leave. Amagi cleans his face with the sleeves of his jacket, covers his reddened face with his scarf. Mahoro extends a hand to him and he takes it.

***

“So you’re planning on working next summer at your uncle’s shop was it? That’s pretty cool, not many people are that responsible.”

Mahoro sits on Amagi's bed later that evening. Like in his dreams. But this is real and he is wearing a white shirt as he climbs under the sheets. Mahoro and Amagi used to have matching sheets, Kamen Rider ones of course. Now his are just light blue. Amagi likes them because they remind him of clear skies, no clouds. They contrast starkly against Mahoro's hair, his head in a fluffy white pillow as if against a cloud.

“Yeah… I think it will be good too. My aunt has taught me some stuff about arrangements and things I will need to do there.”

“What kind of shop is it?”

“A flower shop, you know, flower arrangements. I like that, it's kind of relaxing. Caring for the flowers and the plants and seeing them grow and become so big and colorful! I used to be really clumsy but I am getting the hang of it..."

He imagines it, gets a bit flustered at the thought, at sharing these things with Mahoro again so easily. Things he hadn't told anyone else yet.

"And people bringing them home to give their loved ones, you know--" he goes red "--it is also kind of gratifying. Sorry... maybe you think it’s a bit lame.”

But Mahoro only smiles at him. This feels like a sleepover, like so long ago. But it is different now, better; Amagi can't wait to kiss him again.

“It’s not lame. It’s nice.” He says finally, his hand on Amagi's. He feels warm now, even though he has always had cold hands before. 

“Do you like flowers Mahoro?”

They lace their fingers together again.

"Yeah..."

He rubs their noses together under the warmth of the sheets and the blanket.

“Yeah, now I do.”

*


End file.
